Horses and jockeys send up spray and sand at the annual Castlepoint beach races in Wairarapa in 2015.
The sound of thundering hooves will not be accompanying Castlepoint Beach Races 150th Anniversary celebrations this year.
The racing stewards for the historic Wairarapa racing event decided on Monday that there was not enough sand on the main beach to safely run the event this year.
Organisers said they were disappointed to have to call off the event, but the amount of sand on the two-kilometre stretch of beach was not something they could change.
President of the Castlepoint Racing Club Scott Whitehead said they had left the decision to cancel the racing as late as possible, but it was obvious there wasn’t enough sand for the horses to run safely.
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“It was hugely disappointing. We had a really good field lined up… so it was going to be good.”
The event managed to run two out of the three years during the pandemic, and had a good run of suitable conditions in the few years previous to that.
In the late-2000s the race was cancelled several times due to lack of sand.
Organisers would continue with an anniversary celebration cocktail evening on Thursday night. They were planning to set up a livestream of the Auckland Cup in the historic Castlepoint Station woolshed on Saturday evening with fun family activities on the beach in the afternoon.
The children’s races would be between 1:30 – 3:30pm, concluding with the Undie 100 and then the ‘Big Dig’.
Two Tiger Moths were also set to do a fly over around mid-afternoon.
